Kurla, April 27: A twenty-year-old youth was arrested on Monday morning after he allegedly mowed down an 11-year-old boy and injured three others while trying his hand at his uncle’s Tata Safari in Kurla police said.
According to the police, the incident happened when accused Ahmed Khan, a college dropout, lost control of the vehicle and mowed down a group of children having ice cream nearby. “The accused had come with his uncle in the latter’s Safari to Kapadia Nagar at Kurla West where they have a scrap dealing unit. While the uncle stepped out of the car and went away for some work, Ahmed (Khan) turned the car on to try his hand at driving the vehicle,” an officer from the Kurla police station said.
Though Khan had a driver’s licence, he was not familiar with the controls of this particular car, the police said, adding, he lost control of the vehicle and went hurtling backwards towards an ice-cream vendor. “As it was many children had gathered to buy ice creams and suddenly the vehicle rammed into them. The impact was such that the vehicle went further backwards to crash through a wall bordering another housing society and entered their premises. It finally coming to a halt after a crash into a grilled enclosure of a ground floor gallery,” the officer said.
Eyewitnesses told police that Khan had picked up Mohammad Asif Khan (11), the most injured amongst the children, to rush him to a hospital, but panicked after a few steps and left the boy on the ground, and allegedly fled.
The injured children were rushed to a nearby hospital where Asif was declared dead on arrival, the police said. Asif’s sister Fatima (8), who was also with him, fractured her left leg and was admitted to Noor Hospital. The other two children, Rehan Chaudhary (12) and Shirazuddin Qazi (18), were rushed to Habib Hospital in Kurla.
The police arrested Khan in the early hours of Monday morning and booked him for causing death by rash and negligent act. He was later produced before a magistrate court where he was sent to judicial custody till April 29.
Meanwhile, the father of deceased boy, Ayub Khan, said, “The accused should have been charged for murder for his act which killed my son.” He added, “The police have been very insensitive towards us. We were not even informed when the accused was arrested or produced in court. We got to know all this from other people.”
“I was at my scrap dealing shop when I got to know about the incident and rushed there. Asif was enthusiastic about going to our native place in Uttar Pradesh in May for my brother’s wedding. The children would regularly go to that ice-cream vendor in the evenings for a treat after playing,” he added.
—–Agencies